Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Newsletter Friday 1 June

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Principal's Patch

Kia ora koutou

Treemendous Makeover Saturday 16 June - only two weeks to go!

The excitement is really building now as we are on the final countdown to our Treemendous Makeover Day on Saturday 16th June.
The day before the Treemendous Makover Working Bee, we are looking forward to having Ruud Kleinpaste - the Bug Man, and Riley Elliott - The Shark Man visit the school. They will be speaking to all of the children, and the teachers, on that Friday.


Please make sure that you have Saturday 16th June (9am-midday) in your diary!

We will have over 800 plants to plant in our Treemendous Makeover area, and there will be a sausage sizzle at the end of the planting - around midday.

What Now TV Crew at Beckenham today

The What Now TV crew were at school today, following a group of our Year 3/4 students on their regular visit to the Thorrington Rest Home. 



They shot some film at school in the library first and then down at the rest home. We will try and give you advance warning of when this will screen on What Now - we believe it will be later this month.

Home Learning Survey

We have had a fabulous response (147 so far) to the Home Learning Survey sent out two weeks ago. This survey will close on Tuesday, so if you haven't had a chance to give your feedback yet, please click on this link and have your say.

Reminder: Tuesday 26th June - School will close for formal instruction at 12:30pm

Due to the Paid Union Meeting for teachers in Christchurch that will be happening on the afternoon of Tuesday 26th June, we will be skeleton staff (Principal and Teacher aides only) from 12:30pm due to our teachers all needing to attend the union meeting. We are requesting that you pick up your children at 12:30pm that day, or contact the office to let us know they will be staying at school so we can arrange supervision.

I hope you all have a relaxing and safe long weekend.
Ngā mihi nui

Sandy Hastings
Tumuaki - Principal

Important Dates

Upcoming Events

Saturday, 16 June, 9am - 12noon TREEMENDOUS MAKEOVER WORKING BEE!

Tuesday 26 June, School closes at 12:30pm


Term Dates

Click here to view 2018 term dates.

Citizen of the Week

James Coleman - Year 6

James, you are an outstanding role model in our hub. You are a highly motivated learner and consistently put your best effort into your learning. You are extremely enthusiastic, inquisitive, caring, and helpful. Thank you for the magnificent contribution you make to our team. You are a superstar!

Ashlyn Taffs - Year 3

Ashlyn, you are such a superstar in the Kōwhai Whānau. You demonstrate of all our school values in all that you do. You approach all learning challenges with a fantastic attitude and a massive smile. Everyone in the hub knows that they can rely on you to be a good friend as well as an amazing role model. Thank you for being awesome Ashlyn! Tino pai.

School Notices

Impetigo (school sores)

We have had cases of Impetigo reported at Beckenham.  Please read the following information provided by the Ministry of Health.

What to do

  • Go to the doctor.
  • Check and clean every day.
  • Gently wash the sores with warm water and a soft cloth. Wash the sores until the crust comes off and wash away the pus and blood.
  • Check other children for impetigo. Use any cream from the doctor on the sores.
  • Cover sores with a cloth or plaster to help stop the infection from spreading.
  • Keep your child’s nails short and clean.
  • Wash your hands before and after touching the skin or sores.
  • Make sure your child washes their hands often, especially if they touch the sores.

What to do if impetigo gets worseYou need to go back to the doctor if any of these things happen:
  • sores last more than a week
  • sores become red or swollen
  • sores have pus in them
  • your child has a fever.

The infection may have spread to other parts of the body or blood. Your child may need blood tests and antibiotics.
It is important to take the antibiotics every day until they are finished, even if the impetigo seems to have cleared up earlier. The antibiotics need to keep killing the infection in the body after the skin has healed.

Time off from kura or school
Until sores have dried up or 24 hours after antibiotic treatment has started.

Drop off zone on Sandwich Road

This seems to be working really well in the mornings, but not in the afternoons. This afternoon every space was taken up with cars that were parked there, all but one without a driver in it, for over 10 mins from 3pm. This completely defeats the purpose of there being a drop off/pick up zone. Caregivers who should have been able to just drive in, pick up their waiting child and drive away again were not able to do this.

There was an article on STUFF just yesterday about the challenges that many schools face with pick up and drop off times. Let's not be one of those schools!

We believe that everyone in our school community has the wellbeing and safety of all of our children as a top priority. To achieve this, we need every person to support the strategies that the school, the council and the road rules provide for our children's safety.

We have been putting 'friendly reminders' on vehicle windscreens since the start of term. If the situation doesn't improve next week, we will be asking the Council to send a traffic warden out to help support this strategy.



PTA News

Our Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto PTA "WE CARE" products are still available for purchasing. We are so excited to share our NEW ‘We Care’ range with you.


Products that help us care for our environment & provide practical assistance in our daily lives- the Jute Bag & Coffee cups are a must for those on the go & will have all the other shoppers in the supermarket green with envy!

We are still also offering an old favourite, the Beckenham Tea Towel, along with a NEW affordable black stylish Beckenham Apron & an A2 Canvas.

Check out ALL these amazing products on our website

ORDER these products throughout the rest of the year & at your convenience.

Thanks to all those that competed the PTA Survey.
Results, with regards to the 2nd Hand UNIFORM SHOP HOURS, highlighted that people prefer afternoon sessions during the week.
Therefore the UNIFORM SHOP (located at the PTA Hub /old dental clinic on the corner of Sandwich Road and Eastern Terrace) will be OPEN Monday, Thursday & Friday 3-3:30pm for the rest of this term starting on Thursday next week.
Want to join the "PTA SUPPORT CREW"? - complete our PTA SURVEY & indicate how/when/where you can support your school - PTA SURVEY 2018

Wellbeing News


A few things from Pōhutukawa

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Kia ora koutou.

Over the next few days your child will be bringing home sleep slips to fill in, along with a small clock, which is theirs to keep. The sleep slips are part of the sleep inquiry we are working on at the moment, which comes under the bigger umbrella of 'sustaining our well being'. The students are required to fill out three consecutive slips in order to analyse their sleep patterns and formulate a goal to do with sleep. We would love these slips to be returned to school the next day so that each child has a record of how they slept and how they felt when they woke up.

Jungle are off to the South Learning Centre today to participate in a Matariki session there, and Lake and Alpine will be off tomorrow. Thank you so much to the parents who are accompanying the classes, making it possible for us to take advantage of this free learning opportunity.

We are starting new art topics next week and Jarred will be taking a magazine mozaics topic. He requires used magazines to do this. If you have any unwanted magazines at home it would be lovely if you could send them to school for us to use.

We hope you are staying dry and warm!
Tracy, Nick, Katie and Gayle

Kauri Whānau Weekly Update: Term 2 Week 5

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Thanks for your support with our comedy evening fundraiser. The evening was a roaring success, full of hilarity and good times. Many thanks to Leigh for overseeing the event and to everyone who donated, baked and helped out on the night. We raised $3300! $2000 of this goes towards camp and $1300 towards our ski trip next term.

We are now taking orders for our Dunedin camp photo book. This will cost $25 and payment will be required before June 8th. Please click here to order your copy.



Treaty of Waitangi Workshops:

We are learning so much from Sharon in our treaty workshops. Last week we learnt about some laws that were passed after the treaty was signed and the history of Parihaka. We also learnt a couple of fun games, practising our Te Reo Maori. We finish off with two more workshops this week. 


40 Hour Famine:

We're less than two weeks away from Famine Weekend. By now, students will hopefully have already gathered some sponsorship and will be looking to collect a few more sponsors before their weekend of going without. Roughly 3.7 million people have been forced to seek refuge from the civil war raging in South Sudan, many of whom are children forced to flee without their parents. The conflict has had a major impact on food resources, with 50% of crops destroyed and wartime conditions causing food prices to skyrocket. Any support is greatly appreciated!
If you haven't already been approached for sponsorship by a student, Beckenham has its own fundraising page here - https://my.worldvision.org.nz/fundraising/support-someone/1c71bff9-6137-4ea2-9364-ae3e29ea01a9 . If your child is taking part in the Famine Weekend, we thank you in advance for your support.


Congratulations:

Well done to Maria, who has qualified for the national aerobic gymnastics competition in Tauranga later this year. Maria scored an outstanding result in the regional competition in Balclutha last weekend.

A brisk morning turned into a beautiful autumn day out at Halswell Quarry last week for our zone cross country event. Our competitors embraced the challenge of a muddy course, covering three km in their two laps of the park. As usual, our zone brought a high level of competition that encouraged our runners to push their limits. The tamariki showed our kete value ‘We get there together’, sometimes quite literally, by crossing the finish holding hands but also by encouraging and supporting others in their race.

A huge congratulations to all our runners. We noticed fantastic dedication by many tamariki in preparation for this event and this commitment to training showed during the race.

The following children have qualified for Canterbury’s on the 20th of June, which uses the same course at Halswell Quarry.
  • Roxy Murphin (4th equal)
  • Sophia Brown (4th equal)
  • Charlotte Grey (6th)
  • Tilly Harris (3rd)



Passions:

Thursday afternoons are a real highlight in our hub. The children have opted to learn about one of the following: coding, theatre sports, volleyball, following their own passion, felt making and working with younger children. Below are some photos of wet felting last week.








Kōwhai News Week 4 Term 2

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Hi everyone,
What a busy two weeks we have had at swimming. It has been wonderful to see the children demonstrating the school value, ‘We love challenge' in the way they have listened carefully to the instructors and worked on improving individual swimming skills.
A huge thank you to all the parents who came along to assist us at the pool. We appreciate the time that you have given!



Sleep Sleuths
While we have been swimming, the children have been,  'Sleep Sleuths' researching facts about the importance of sleep. The children brainstormed a variety of questions (wonderings) they had about sleep. We have used a variety of methods to research the answers to our questions, including watching YouTube clips, reading books, reading websites online or articles and texts created by the teacher.
For many of the children, they have grown their understanding about the importance of sleep, the sleep cycle, dreaming, how animals sleep to name a few. Communicating and sharing this learning will be our next focus.
For most of the team, the teachers have taken an integrated approach by teaching reading and writing at the same time instead of giving the children separate reading books and writing on an unrelated topic. This has enabled us to clearly show the link between reading and writing.
Across the team, the children have been given greater agency with their learning by working in a variety of ways. This has looked liked working individually, with a buddy, in small groups, and using a variety of resources.

Next week, we will be exploring sleep spaces and how people sleep around the world. Here are some images which were taken within one literacy block this week which show how we differentiate learning.
Maths
Math Talk Moves Poster - Math Solutions Books & Resources StoreWe have been so impressed with the children during maths time this term and it has been wonderful to see the children working together and sharing their ideas and strategies when solving our maths problems. During these sessions, we are actively encouraging the children to extend and share their thinking by using the maths talk moves. These ways of talking are enabling the children to think really critically about the strategy they are using to solve a problem and reflect on its effectiveness.
Alongside the maths problems, the children are continuing with their MMM to help extend their basic facts knowledge and we are still teaching the children about number knowledge (place value, reading and writing numbers etc.) as well as teaching strategies so the children are extending their proficiency when problem-solving.
Here are a couple of examples of the problems and the strategies being used.



Thorrington Village

We have been offered the opportunity to appear on the What Now television programme showing what we do when we visit the residents at Thorrington Village and how we show that ‘We Care’ about our community and how ‘We Make A Difference’. The What Now TV crew will be accompanying 15 of our children to the village on Friday 1st June and filming us while we are there. The children will be talking, reading and playing games with the residents and then we will all sing for them at the very end. It is all very exciting!

Image result for image of what now tv programme


Cross Country

 We had a fantastic day for our whole school cross country, it was great to have everyone out on the park in their house colours. All of the children did an amazing job, putting in so much effort and really challenging themselves to run faster. The top four children from each year group will be asked to represent Beckenham School at the Hillview Year 0 - 4 cross country challenge in Week 10. We will be sending home information to these students in the coming weeks.

That's all for now. Keep warm!
Kōwhai Teaching Team